by C J BISHOP
This poem is written in memory of our Collie, Bo. He was born 9/12/87 and taken from us on 4/6/99. It is also written in memory of our Golden Retriever, Erin who was born 5/24/89 and died from cancer on January 1, 1996. Words cannot and will not ever express our sorrow and grief at their absence from our lives.
WHERE TO BURY A DOG
A subscriber of the Ontario Argus Observer has written to the editor asking: "Where shall I bury my dog?"
We would say to the Ontario man that there are various places in which a dog may be buried.
We are thinking now of a Setter, whose coat was flame in the sunshine, and who, so far as we are aware, never entertained a mean or an unworthy thought.
This Setter is buried beneath a cherry tree, under four feet of garden loam. And at its proper season, the cherry tree strews petals on the green lawn of his grave. Beneath a cherry tree, or an apple, or any flowering shrub is an excellent place to bury a dog.
Beneath such trees, such shrubs, he slept in the drowsy summer, or gnawed at a flavorous bone, or lifted his head to challenge some strange intruder. These are good places in life or in death.
Yet, it is a small matter, for if the dog be well remembered, if sometimes he leaps through your dreams actual as in life, eyes kindling, laughing, begging, it matters not at all where that dog sleeps.
On a hill where the wind is unrebuked, and the trees are roaring, or beside a stream he knew in puppyhood, or somewhere in the flatness of a pasture lane where most exhilarating cattle grazed, is all one to the dog, and all one to you. And nothing is gained, nothing is lost if memory lives.
But, there is one place to bury a dog....If you bury him in this spot, he will come to you when you call--come to you over the grim, dim frontiers of death and down the well-remembered path, and to your side again.
And though you call a dozen living dogs to heel, they shall not growl at him nor resent his coming, for he belongs there. People may laugh at you who see no lightest blade of grass bent by his footfall...who hear no whimper, people who never really had a dog. Smile at them, for you know something that is hidden from them, and which is well worth the knowing.
The one best place to bury a dog is in the heart of his caretaker.
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We love you and we miss you both dearly, Erin and Bo.
The C J Bishop Family
Denver, Colorado